Dot points

Please see our Lists entry for full guidance on formatting and punctuating dot points.

Making a list is one the most common tasks that humans do, and we've been doing it within written sentences for as long as we've been writing. Yet formatting our lists vertically using bullets or numbers is relatively new in formal documents.

Not surprisingly, the best way to format and punctuate vertical lists has been one of the most debated topics in workplace writing style. We initially carried over the in-sentence punctuation, but more recently let the bullets do the punctuating.

It's taken a few decades of word processing to settle on the best approach for formatting a list, and for style guides to keep pace with contemporary practice. Our Lists entry will take you through the different types of in-sentence and vertical lists and how to format them.